Can police negligence be tackled under HRA 1998, asks Richard Scorer
“Metropolitan Police pays out over flawed rape investigation”: as The Guardian reported in December 2012, police failings in the investigation of a rape of a 15-year-old girl led to an out-of-court compensation payment by the police in a civil claim brought by the victim. The payment—made without admission of liability—concerned serious failings by the Met’s Sapphire sexual assault unit. In a report on the case, the Independent Police Complaints Commission had identified “a troubling picture of an inexperienced, overburdened police officer with inadequate supervision working in an under resourced unit”. Important mobile phone evidence which might have assisted a conviction was not secured; there was no search for forensic evidence at the crime scene. The suspect was charged but acquitted at trial. The trial judge called the police mistakes “a disgrace” and observed that the outcome of the trial might have been different if the matter had been “investigated properly”. The complainant sued and accepted £15,000 before the action came to trial.
